It All Started With Ice Cream
by Teris Xenite
Summary: A five plus one set in the Mirror Darkly verse. Five times James Kirk was there for Joanna McCoy, and once that she was there for him.


Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. I own nothing interesting. All I've got is my bones, must be why I like McCoy so much.

AN: Just a look at Kirk's involvement from Joanna's point of view.

It All Started With Ice Cream

_aka Five Times That Kirk Was There For Joanna, and One Time She Returns the Favor_

One

No one who'd ever heard of James T. Kirk would have believed Joanna McCoy if she'd said that she'd realized that he wasn't just a bloodthirsty murderer over a dish of ice cream. She may have only been a child at the time, but she knew that he'd been bad enough to destroy someone who blew up a whole planet. She never could understand how her daddy, who was so nice to everyone could be friends with someone that the news her mommy watched when she didn't realize that Joanna was listening called the Empire's most bloodthirsty Captain. She'd been surprised when instead of yelling at her, like most of the grownups in her life, he'd smiled, patiently explained things to her, and after extracting a promise not to tell her daddy shared a banana split with her. No one who was worried about her daddy being upset about ice cream could really be that bad.

Two

Joanna realized that Kirk wasn't anything like her daddy Marcus had been not too long after the ice cream incident. Her Nana Winona had given her some princess dress up jewelry that she loved. She wore it everywhere, except in the bathtub because her daddy said that it would ruin it. Something about the water messing it up so that it wouldn't be shiny anymore. Uncle Jim had asked to see the necklace a few times, but hadn't gotten mad when she said no. Whenever daddy Marcus asked to see her toys, he broke them. She didn't think that Uncle Jim would do anything like that, but she still didn't want to risk anything happening to her princess necklace.

Finally one night, when Uncle Jim asked to see her princess necklace she took it off and slowly put it in his hand. He smiled, and asked Joanna to close her eyes. She heard a rustling, and felt something going over her head. It was cold to the touch and heavy, and when Uncle Jim told her she could open her eyes she looked down and saw that he'd replaced the toy necklace with a grown up one. It was a lot shinier than the one that Nana Winona had given her, and the light caught the clear stone in the middle and made rainbows whichever way she turned it.

She'd given Uncle Jim a hug and thanked him, and he'd hugged her back. The hug turned into a tickle fight, and she hadn't thought anymore about it till later that night when she heard her daddy and Uncle Jim talking. "Ok, ok so maybe it's a little bit extravagant, but no girl of mine's going to be wearing plastic pearls, Bones." Then their voices got softer and she heard her daddy laugh, so she figured that everything was alright, and settled down to watch the sparkles from her necklace as she held it up to her nightlight.

Three

Joanna squirmed on the sheets of the biobed. Her throat was sore, she was hot and sticky. She tried really hard, but she couldn't remember a time when she'd been more miserable. She'd picked up some strain of the flu that Terrains hadn't been inoculated for due to its relative rarity on their planet, and now the only thing that they could do for her was manage the symptoms while they waited for her immune system to do its job. Joanna was aware of this. She had no doubts that if her daddy could be doing anything else for her, he would be. She knew and understood that. That didn't mean that she didn't still feel lousy in the meantime.

She heard the click of heals coming together, and quietly muttered deference and almost smiled. Uncle Jim was coming to see her. Sure enough a few seconds later, he pushed the curtains aside and sat a large bag down on the bedside table. "How you feeling kiddo?" Joanna tried to answer, before being reminded of the fact that talking hurt, so she extended her hand and waved it back and forth slightly. Uncle Jim seemed to interpret that fine, and brushed her hair back off of her forehead leaving his hand there for a moment letting her enjoy the coolness of it.

"Don't you worry, I've got just the thing to make you feel better." He reached into the bag and pulled out a container of something and a spoon, and pulled the visitors chair close enough for him to be able to reach her. "Come on, open up, sure fire cure for your sore throat and tummy ache heading your way."

She opened her mouth, a little annoyed at the fact that her fever had left her so shaking that someone had to feed her. Sweet coolness with a hint of spice reached her tongue and Kirk gave her a small smile when she looked at him in surprise. "Ice cream for the sore throat, and ginger to help that upset tummy of yours." He patiently fed her the rest of the ice cream, and noticing that she was clammy and that her sheets were soaking wet he called in the nurse, and held her in his lap while they changed her sheets, and tucked her in after they'd cleaned her up and gotten her a fresh gown.

Then he plucked an amazingly soft teddy bear from his giant bag, and placed it in her arms. He started reading her a story, and she was only mildly annoyed when she felt herself falling asleep before he got to the end. Her daddy was much more annoyed when he ended up treating Uncle Jim for the same obscure strain of flu a few days later. He kept muttering something about captains who should know better than to break quarantine. It didn't improve his mood any when she broke their replicator trying to figure out how to coerce it to make ginger ice cream for Uncle Jim.

Four

Joanna learned how far Kirk was willing to go to accomplish the impossible for her in high school, as Kirk stood outside of her door and tried to console her. She'd been sobbing uncontrollably when they'd first arrived, and that had panicked both her daddy and Uncle Jim. Both of them rapidly backpedalled looking for someone better suited to the assuredly sensitive chat that this was going to be, once they had determining that there was no physical cause for her tears. Uhura and Gaila had come in and been able to understand her far better.

Gaila told her that the girl her former boyfriend was taking to the dance the next day was giving into his advances far too easily, and would no doubt soon be branded a whore. Uhura had told her in no uncertain terms that the boy was an idiot not fit to escort her down the hall, much less to the social event of the year. She also promised that by the time that she got through with him that he'd be so ashamed of himself that he wouldn't be able to come out of his house without a disguise, all the while swearing in every language that she knew.

Gaila left during this, no doubt to talk to Uncle Jim. He reentered the room with eyes blazing and looking like all of the things those magazines that he and her daddy didn't know she read called him. All the while offering to turn her ex into a piñata for her, among other anatomically impossible suggestions of what he was going to do when he got his hands on Scott. He said all the right things about someone coming along one day who would appreciate her for the wonderful girl that she was. He told her that this mystical person would adore her just as she was, and that he was proud of her for turning down the boy's advances, even though he knew it was hard.

All of that was great, but it didn't help her a whole lot right now. Not when she was going to be a laughing stock at school tomorrow, because everyone would know exactly why Scott had broken up with her. She'd sent Uncle Jim away, understanding that he was trying, but not wanting to hear anymore of his well intentioned but meaningless platitudes.

Sulu brought her flowers, and offered to 'turn the little bastard into fish bait'. Spock had even brought her ice cream and chocolate to 'assist in her adolescent social grief ritual'. Scotty had offered to make sure that the boy and his date ended up on a barren ice planet instead of at the dance. Her daddy had offered to turn him into a blistered, festering pile of humanity so foul no one would ever willingly go near him again. All of these things were great, but it wasn't going to help at the moment.

Uncle Jim came in again a few moments later, with the news that Chekov was eagerly awaiting his opportunity to escort her to the dance. Apparently he'd been interested in her for some time, but had thought that her daddy and Uncle Jim wouldn't approve. When faced with the prospect of her sobbing her eyes out and miserable instead, it appeared that they were willing to concede that really for someone as amazing as Chekov was, eleven years wasn't too much of an age gap. Being told that since her date was someone that Kirk and her father trusted she could in fact go to the after party as well, which had previously been forbidden, well that was just awesome.

She didn't find out until she got to school the next day that Uncle Jim had managed to pull some strings to get the 'it' performer of the year to come to a school dance halfway across the galaxy, to insure that no one would be talking about Joanna's fight with her ex. Uhura and Gaila managed to twist the rumor mill around to the point that everyone thought that Joanna had dumped Scott not the other way around. The suggestion had also been made that she'd not wasted anytime finding a better match, who would be escorting her to the dance that evening.

All in all the evening had been saved by Uncle Jim and her extended family. She and Chekov had a wonderful time at the dance, with him being very attentive, but still respectful. He'd made her laugh, and smiled at her like she was the only girl in the whole world that mattered. And when she'd gotten home, her daddy and Jim had been waiting up for her. Uncle Jim smiled at her as he laughingly spun her around the living room floor while he and her daddy listened to her tell them about the events of the dance. And as her daddy cut in on the dance, with Uncle Jim only acquiescing with the promise of daddy saving a dance for him later, she realized that she surely had to be the luckiest girl in the world.

Five

"No one I've ever known deserves you." Uncle Jim looked at her and smiled softly, looking oddly a bit wistful and nostalgic. A stop had to be put to that right now, waterproof mascara could only withstand so much, and she had no intention of walking down the aisle looking like a raccoon.

"Uncle Jim, don't start. You'll make me cry, and I don't want to walk down the aisle with red eyes."

"You could have let me finish." He shot her a warning look that implied even though I love you, and even though it's your wedding day, there's no cause to be rude. "I was going to say that he does come closer than most men that I've know." He looked at her suddenly all seriousness. "But you know that if he ever hurts you, I'll kill him. You know that right?" Ignoring her chuckle, he continued. "And you can always come home. No matter what, you know that."

"Yes, I know you'll kill him if he so much as gives me a hangnail. I know, and I appreciate it. But it's alright I promise." She smiled and shook her head as he looked unconvinced. "Uncle Jim, you gave us your blessing forever ago. You introduced us remember?"

"Not one of my brighter moments, if I hadn't I wouldn't have to share you with him." This grousing was only partially playful, and there was a palpable note of regret that he and her daddy would no longer be the most important men in her life.

"I grew up Uncle Jim, it had to happen eventually." At the rueful pronouncement that was so much like her father Kirk shook himself and stopped complaining. He reached over and took Joanna's hand in his, and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles. A grown up kiss not the butterfly kisses of her youth, or the affectionate pecks on the cheek that she'd allowed when she became a moody teenager.

He looked deep into her eyes and smiled. "No bride has ever looked more beautiful."

She lost the battle she'd been waging with her self composure, and grabbed for a tissue to minimize the damage. "Damn it Uncle Jim, I told you not to make me cry."

"Just telling the truth sweetheart." He gave her a gentle squeeze mindful of the dress, and smiled as she shooed him away.

"Go on the wedding can't start without the best man. And if Daddy's through hyperventilating, would you mind sending him in?"

One

A confused Joanna McCoy rung Kirk's bell at the Starfleet temporary quarters that he'd taken to staying in this shore leave, since he'd had a falling out with her father and was avoiding their San Francisco apartment. She was uncertain of the mood that she'd find him in, and of the welcome that she'd receive. She came prepared with ice cream and tissues if Kirk needed to vent, as well as several bottles of very good liquor if he wanted to forget.

Either way she had hopped on the shuttle first thing that morning after she'd heard through Starfleet scuttlebutt that her father had left Kirk and parted from his company as soon as the Enterprise landed in space dock. She'd expected to arrive in San Francisco only to find that the rumor was false, but instead found Kirk in the single officer's quarters that were held aside for unattached Captains while they were dirt side.

She rung the bell again, and when there was no response proceeded to begin hacking the lock like Kirk had taught her. She could only pray that she wasn't about to walk in on something profoundly mentally scarring, like him having rebound sex. Years after the fact his reputation for wild sex prior to her father's influence was legend around Starfleet academy and she really had no desire to see that side of him.

When she saw him hunched over at the window, when the eyes that met hers were void of every emotion but pain, she wished that she'd walked in on him with one of those creatures with several hundred tentacles instead. That would have grossed her out, but this, this just broke her heart. She steered him towards the table and into a chair, tossed the ice cream in the general vicinity of the recycler, and poured him a three finger shot. Her eyebrows went up to her hairline when he downed it without scanning it first, and she realized how truly maudlin he'd become.

Many hours and most of the bottle later she looked at him with damp eyes, feeling the pain of his loss more profoundly the longer she was in his presence. Finally she looked over at him. "I don't understand. Daddy loves you, I know he does. Why would he do this?"

Kirk shook his head in denial, then lowered his eyes back to the whiskey in his glass. "No, Jo. Your daddy doesn't love me. Thought he did. Thought once he saw how I felt about him, it'd change things. Thought that I could make him love me. Instead I'm sitting here getting piss drunk, and I don't even have it in me to be mad at him. You shouldn't be either sweetheart. He loves you, more than you'll ever know. That's how all this started." And then her heart broke a little more as Kirk described how he and her father had come to be.

AN: Alright everyone, this is in the Mirror Darkly cannon, but no hyperventilation please. That plus one isn't the end of the story between McCoy and Kirk, and as you can tell it's going to be a while before we get there. Hopefully y'all enjoyed this little fast forward in Kirk and McCoy's life. Hope you enjoyed reading, and as always your reviews make my day. Next up will be a chapter of Through a Mirror Darkly. Thanks for reading.


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